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She opened her mouth to reply but no words came.
A fake date, indeed. It should sound insane. Nonsensical. Yet his rich, even tone and neutral expression made it sound utterly plausible. Normal, even. As if a fake date was a completely run-of-the-mill daily event.
Perhaps it was in his world.
Tak Basu—one of the hospital’s brightest stars. Talk about an eligible bachelor. His reputation for medical excellence preceded him only slightly more than his brooding good looks and an immorally stunning Adonis physique that would make even the most pious woman ache to sin.
Yet now she realised that not even the most fevered description could accurately convey just how devastating he was in the flesh, or just how paralysing his sheer magnetism truly was.
Every hair on her body felt as though it was standing to attention. Ready to do his bidding—eager, even. It was like nothing she’d ever experienced in the whole of her life.
Then there were the smaller things. Like his big hands, strong forearms, the way he stood as though he owned the world. Or the shock of thick black hair, longer on top than she might have expected, which only added to his already six foot three height. It looked soft and inviting, and it took Effie a moment to realise that her fingers were actually aching with the urge to test it out.
And so she perched there on her stool, pretending she was still working so that she didn’t have to turn to him and withstand the full weight of her inconvenient attraction. The fact that he didn’t seem to date much only enhanced his appeal—and his mystique.
Finally—mercifully—she found her tongue again. ‘What on earth makes you think I want a fake date?’ She flushed. ‘Or indeed any kind of date.’
She studiously ignored the little voice in her head taunting her for engaging with him. Telling her that had it been anyone else she would already have declined politely before walking away.
‘Isn’t that rather the point?’ His mouth curved slightly in what could only be described as a sinful smile. ‘If it’s a fake date, then it isn’t really any kind of date.’
‘Semantics.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Or riddles. In any case, I’ve never really cared for either. Just as I really don’t need a date—fake or otherwise.’
Still she didn’t make herself walk away. Why was that?
‘I don’t understand how I...how a fake date...concerns me.’
And she wanted to understand. Perhaps a little bit too much. Even if he was eyeing her as though to him she rated as about as intelligent as the average sponge in the animal kingdom. She could take offense, but that really wasn’t her style. Who had time in a job like her?
‘Hetti suggested otherwise.’
‘Hetti?’
‘Yes, Hetti. The other Dr Basu.’ He jerked his head towards where his sister and her team were focussed on the cyclist. ‘Hemavati.’
Something clicked. How had she missed it before? Probably something to do with the stress of moving house, moving town, moving halfway acros
s the country. And at every step fighting with her thirteen-going-on-thirty-year-old daughter, who hadn’t wanted to leave everything she knew.
‘Hetti? Yes, I know who Hetti is. I just don’t understand why she would have mentioned me to you.’
She and Hetti had worked together for a couple of years back at Allport Infirmary’s A&E. They’d even been friends. Well, as close to being friends as two rather guarded individuals could be. Probably that was one of their shared traits, which had drawn them to each other.
‘She mentioned that you were caught on the horns of a dilemma—not wanting a date for the charity gala on one side and risking being hit on all night if you’re without a date on the other. Apparently you’ve swiftly shut down any man who has asked you.’
Nothing about Nell, then. That was good. The last thing she wanted was people gossiping about her having been a teenage mum, or privately questioning whether she was really up to the job of being an air ambulance doctor. It was such a demanding, limited environment, and lives literally depended on her and her two paramedics.
No one else. Just the three of them. Not like in the A&E, where she’d been a doctor up until now, where she could call on a colleague for a consult if she needed to.
So she was still new to the air ambulance team—still in her probationary period. Her employers might have liked her CV and her references, and the way she’d come across in her many interviews, but they didn’t know the first thing about her. Mainly because she kept her private life just that. Utterly private.
If they’d known the truth about her would they still have hired her? Would she have been good enough for them? Or even enough?
A jolt of something that felt altogether too much like insecurity bolted through Effie before she could stop it. Before she could shove it back into the distant shadows of her brain where it belonged.
The only person who had never made her feel she had something to prove was Eleanor. The one woman who had seen through Effie’s tough, angry exterior to the frightened, lonely kid beneath. The woman who had loved her so much that she’d been willing to fight Effie’s sorry excuse for a mum and to adopt her. The woman who had seen Effie’s potential and encouraged her to really do something with her life—starting by going to university. And not just any university, either.
But Eleanor had been gone from her life for so many years now that it was getting harder and harder for Effie to remember how it had felt to have someone to lean on.
